Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Progress report: Najera

Hello!
This morning the sun was out! it was wonderful. We left about 6:30 this morning and there were no bakeries open in Logrono at that time. :-(
We stopped at a vending machine and bought a Coke to share, then walked on through the nature park that encircled the lake and headed on down the road to the next town. (Starts with a V) There we found an open bakery and got cafe leche and ham-n-cheese croissants. There were 2 young magnolia trees planted amongst the little tables. _The morning suddenly felt so good, I started humming that song from "Oklahoma" about the fabulous day. (Hey, I am easily amused.)
The sun stayed out. About an hour later, I slipped between two olive trees and shucked off my fleece top and put on a blouse--that melon colored Columbia one with the button-up sleeves. It felt so good--the fleece was pretty wet with sweat by that time.
We kept on, passing all the lovely Irish folks who had been quietly laughing at us for our shivering and misery in the cold and rain and wind. It was a sunny day, most of the paths were the compressed-caliche type of surface, and we were happy campers.
We hauled into Najera about 1:30 pm and the sun was still out. We were still happy campers. (By the way, the A&M group is here too.)
There is a lovely river with banks of rocks in it in this town. There are mesas in the area, including one close to the town buildings. They are constructed of layers of red rock (Think Colorado Springs, but without so much of the extravagantly tortured shapes.)
We have bought a replacement Buff scarf. (The pretty green with spots like a trout one slipped off my hair on the approaches to Villatuerta, I think--it was the approaches to Pamplona, basically, we were scurrying ahead of a storm, and I think it just was embarrassed to be seen with me and slipped off.) It has Camino designs on it. And I firmly intend to use hair clips with it!
We had a Pilgrim menu tonite--mine was chicken thigh which came de-boned and grilled--and for dessert we were offered a tart con chocolate. Oh my goodness. It was so lovely, my sweetie took a picture. Think of three layers of genoise, separated by 2 layers of light, fluffy chocolate mousse, and with a drizzle of chocolate syrup on top. (I could remember the name of the syrup at the time, but there is a rousing singalong going on behind me right now and I had about one lovely glass of great Tinto too much. Sorry.)
We walked about 19 miles today in the lovely sunshine and warm air. For the first time I begin to understand why anyone would think this is fun.
Tomorrow we will do a short day, to Santo Domingo de las (I forget) but it´s about 13 miles.
The day after that we should be in Burgos, which is the city that El Cid was from and is loaded with history.
I´ll try to post again there.
Hasta laters.